No Coincidences

Tag: children

  • Eternal Families, Children, and The Best Part of Me Was Always You

    Eternal Families, Children, and The Best Part of Me Was Always You

    *Originally written 4/19/2022, edited for posting in 2025.

    I was having a discussion with my mom a frew years ago about the trend in China of younger people not wanting to have children. We talked about this trend spreading through society. This trend of young people wanting to enjoy travelling, free time, more financial freedom, and therefore, choosing to not start families or have children.

    I watched an episode of a show recently. In the show, there is an extremely wealthy and powerful couple. They put off having children. The wife has gotten older and it may be too later for her to have children, but she’s thinking about children. She has a conversation with her husband. In the conversation she says, “Why have we built all this, what is it for?” And he replies, “It’s for us, we built it for ourselves.” She responds, “But if one of us dies…”

    She hit on something there. If you only build in this life for yourself, and if at some point you die, what did you really build it for?

    Back to that conversation with my mom years ago, we talked about how this is a sad level of selfishness spreading. How much can I travel, how much freedom can I have, how much money can I have for myself, with children being only a burden that take these things away from us. Now, of course, there are those who can’t have children and don’t have a choice. This doesn’t apply to someone in that situation at all. I’m talking about all the people my age that have decided a child isn’t worth their time, because their life is more important.

    Until you give your life for another, you never truly understand your capacity to love. Until you open yourself up to the love and selfless life that is caring for a child, “selfless” is just an adjective.

    I was on a long road trip with Beth and Ivy and so I was sitting in the back seat to give Ivy company. This was before Sage and Wren entered our lives. A song started playing. I was leaning over, staring right at Ivy. The lyrics of this song are meant to describe the heartache of a breakup. But as I listened to the words and applied them to the love I felt for my daughter whom I was staring at, the lyrics took on a whole new, eternal, and powerful meaning to me. For those words to take on the meaning they did, I had to apply them in a dark and sad way. I imagined what would happen if I ever lost Ivy (tears come to my eyes as I type those words). Bear with me. The topic will not stay sad and morbid.

    The lyrics were from a song called Breakeven by The Script:

    I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing
    Just prayin’ to a God that I don’t believe in
    ‘Cause I got time while she got freedom
    ‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even

    Her best days will be some of my worst

    …

    While I’m wide awake she’s no trouble sleeping

    ‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even, even, no

    What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? And
    What am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
    I’m falling to pieces, yeah
    I’m falling to pieces

    They say bad things happen for a reason
    But no wise words gonna stop the bleeding
    ‘Cause she’s moved on while I’m still grieving
    And when a heart breaks no it don’t break even, even, no

    And what am I going to do when the best part of me was always you? And
    What am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
    I’m falling to pieces, yeah
    I’m falling to pieces, yeah
    I’m falling to pieces
    (One still in love while the other one’s leaving)
    I’m falling to pieces
    (‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even)

    What am I gonna do when the best part of me was always you? And
    What am I suppose to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
    (Oh glad you’re okay now)
    I’m falling to pieces yeah
    I’m falling to pieces (oh, I’m falling, falling) yeah
    I’m falling to pieces
    (One still in love while the other one’s leaving)
    I’m falling to pieces
    (‘Cause when a heart breaks no it don’t break even)

    While preparing to post this, Wren crawled to my chair and pulled herself to stand at my feet. I decided to experiment if this song is still emotional when considered in this twisted context I’ve applied to it. Yup, still tears. I only let myself brush the very edge of the surface of this hypothetical.

    I can’t imagine the pain of losing a child. I can not. “What am I going to do when the best part of me was always you?”

    I think the most difficult thing that could happen in this life is losing a child and my heart breaks at the mere thought of it. I feel for anyone that has to endure that pain. Just reading those lyrics, considering what I was writing 3.5 years ago, my chest started to ache at the thought. What I wrote here applies more than ever now that I have 3 daughters who I love more than life itself.

    “I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing.”

    “Just praying to a God that I don’t believe in.” This would ever happen to me. But I can see how it would for so many in this world. Which makes me sad. And is why I’m writing this.

    “’Cause I got time while she got freedom” – I’m stuck in time while she would be free.

    “Her best days will be some of my worst” – The best days for our loved ones, their return home, to heaven, is often the worst days for those left behind.

    “While I’m wide awake she’s no trouble sleeping”

    “They say bad things happen for a reason
    But no wise words gonna stop the bleeding
    ‘Cause she’s moved on while I’m still grieving
    And when a heart breaks no it don’t break even, even, no

    And what am I going to do when the best part of me was always you? And
    What am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re OK?
    I’m falling to pieces, yeah.

    This discussion with my mom, that moment with Ivy in the car, and these thoughts originally happened over Easter weekend three years ago.

    Without the resurection, the lyrics of this song would be perfectly true. It would be impossible to go on from that sort of tragedy. But the resurection is real. Jesus Christ did conquer death. I know that Jesus Christ was resurected and that myself and my family will be resurected.

    I can’t believe that I will ever be without Ivy, Sage, Wren, and Beth for too long a period of time. This life is but a blink in eternity. I look at them, and the love I have for each of them, I know the God I love would not allow this level of love in my heart, and then not allow me to be with them forever. It makes me sad that much of Christianity does not have the truth restored through Christ’s true gospel that families can be together forever. I know that Ivy will be mine for eternity. I know that Sage will be mine for eternity. I know that Wren will be mine for eternity. When I’m 100 and Ivy is 70, she will still be my daughter. When I leave this world and she stays, she will still be my daughter. When we both have left this life, she will still be my daughter.

    To all those who might be reading this, and I’ve drudged up memories and feelings you have tried to suppress, to all those thinking about the loved one you so desperately miss now, my message to you is of hope. 

    I know that Christ suffered all of my sins so that I could be forgiven for them and overcome death through His blood and grace. I know that Christ conquered death and was resurrected, so that my family and I can be resurrected. I know that we will live together again as a family unit, because of what He did for me. This is why (though I always fall short) I’ve tried so hard to give everything to Him – my heart, my time, my love, my devotion, my life – because He already gave me everything that means anything. 

    I say with any authority I can muster, with full confidence and faith in the Plan of God: You will see your loved ones again. The ones that make you fall to pieces, the ones that just thinking about choke you up, the ones that make you feel alive but like you’re barely breathing, the ones you don’t know if you can live without because they were the best part of you: You will see them again.

    I am thankful for these truths that have been restored. I’m grateful to know that whatever happens in this life or the next, Ivy, Sage, and Wren will be mine, and I will be theirs. Forever. This goes for Beth also. Because of Jesus Christ we will be together forever. And my love for Him is inexpressable when I consider what He’s done for me.

  • Parenting Without Faith

    Parenting Without Faith

    Moments where you feel like a good parent doing good things sometimes don’t come often enough. And then one comes that is so impactful it brings you to tears.

    Ivy claimed to be sick this morning. I thought she was making it up until I saw her throw up with my own eyes.

    So she stayed home from school. Without any guidance or prompt, she went upstairs on her own and laid down in her bed. This is very un-Ivy like. She was definitely sick.

    I got a show setup on a laptop for her so she could lay in bed and relax. I brought it to her, and she didn’t want it, she just wanted to rest. Ivy was definitely sick.

    An hour later she came to my room and said she did want a show. We walked back to her room, and I started to get it setup. She said she needed to throw up and inexplicably walked away from her throw up bucket and passed her bathroom down the hall to my bathroom.

    Luckily, she made it in time.

    She knelt in front of the toilet. She looked so big, her little four-year-old body, already knowing how to properly throw up in a toilet. Any parent can relate to and feel the pain of watching their child throw up.

    I held her hair and rubbed her back.

    Ivy stood up.

    She said, through little sobs and stutters as she caught her breath, “Daddy, I ask Jesus in my bed to help me. Will you pray for me at my bed? I asked Jesus to help me stop throwing up.”

    Those words don’t fully capture it. I cannot properly put in words the sweetness, the tenderness, the humility, the vulnerability, the faith, the innocence of what was coming out of Ivy’s mouth. What I put above was roughly what she said. But it was so much more. It was soft, it was gentle, it was pleading.

    This pleading was not with adultlike “this needs to get done” energy, but with patient understanding. This request came with complete innocence. Coming from your four-year-old who is normally all chaotic, joyful energy, these calm, sweet moments can be so jarring.

    I explained to Ivy that Jesus might help her stop throwing up, but I promised her that even if she didn’t stop throwing up, He would be with her and help her. I told Ivy, “You know when Jesus died for you?” She nodded, as this is something we talk about often. “When He died for you, He felt what you just felt, that hurt and pain and sickness of throwing up, He felt it. So even if you throw up more, He is with you.”

    Ivy said, “Even when I get big owies, He feels it.”

    I took Ivy back to her room. I put a show on for her to watch. She lay in bed.

    How do parents parent without faith?

    This parenting thing is hard enough. How could I explain to Ivy that she’s throwing up and in pain and I don’t know why and there’s nothing I can do about it?

    In the last couple weeks, my knee has been healed, my daughter with potential hip dysplasia has been blessed (what happens is yet to be seen), and my Ivy has known that even though she’s sick, Jesus is with her and helping her and there’s a reason for it.

    How do you raise kids without this?

    I don’t know.

    The last thing Ivy said during our conversation at the toilet, “Jesus is God, that is why I ask Him for help.”

    Jesus is our God. Heavenly Father is our Father. They watch over us. As I sit here with tears in my eyes, my sweet daughter laying in bed suffering with a little tummy ache, writing this out, I’m reminded that Jesus is God. And I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know that. It would be so hopeless otherwise.

    He died for us, and He knows our pain.

    I wish we could all have the faith of a 4-year-old.

  • A Lesson on Prayer from Ivy

    A Lesson on Prayer from Ivy

    “Become as little children” (Matthew 18:3).

    I think about this a lot.

    Ivy and I pray together often. Most nights at dinner. Most nights before bed.

    I used to say the prayer almost every time. Then most nights we both would say a prayer. Then we started splitting it 50/50, sometimes I would say it, sometimes Ivy would say it. Now she says it almost every time.

    It’s really neat to see her try to replicate what I say. When we were both saying a prayer each night, she would usually ask me to go first. When it was her turn, it was clear she was trying to repeat as much of what I said as she could remember.

    When she started asking to go first then demanding I repeat things she said, I knew she was close to taking over this important responsibility. I was very happy.

    It’s fun watching her prayers evolve.

    Recently she’s started saying something profound and powerful every night.

    “Heavenly Father, thank you for everything we have, and thank you for everything we don’t have.”

    When is the last time you thanked God for everything you don’t have?

    The faith of a little child. What a thing.

    Now Ivy is teaching me how to pray.

    I couldn’t be happier.

  • Pondering on Death, Eternity, Growth, and Mortality

    Pondering on Death, Eternity, Growth, and Mortality

    Emma Smith, the wife of the prophet, was once given a promise that is worth pondering.

    Emma had a 14-month-old child die.

    As a father of three, the thought is unimaginable. Reading through the list of Smith children that died in infanthood is heartbreaking.

    According to Alexander Smith, Emma’s son who made it to adulthood, shortly before her death in 1879 she had a vision where Joseph Smith visited her and promised her she would raise all her children who had not lived to adulthood after her mortality ended.

    What are the implications of this?

    I believe what can be gleaned from this is powerful, comforting, and gives a look into the truly magnificent love and power of a Father in Heaven. I believe the truths restored by Joseph Smith to be awe-inspiring. I believe the truths revealed by Joseph Smith should be awe-inspiring if he truly was a prophet of God. I believe that to be truth.

    I’ve read near-death experiences that describe young children playing in heaven. I still wonder about, and don’t comprehend, age, mortality, “childhood and adulthood”, maturity, time, and the importance of our bodies.

    Those categories: age, mortality, childhood and adulthood, maturity, time, and our bodies seem like a wide-ranging and somewhat unrelated group of topics.

    But what was shared with Emma Smith makes those topics intertwined.

    What is age? In mortality, I am 30 years older than my children. But in the eternities their spirits are eternal, they never had a beginning. Who I am to say that I am any more “mature” than my two sweet daughters? My two young girls teach me and inspire me daily. I believe I came to earth before them to guide them, lead them, watch over them – a great and marvelous calling and responsibility – but they’re also here to guide, lead, and watch over me. It’s the great circular of life (not to be confused with, though very similar to, the Circle of Life in the Lion King).

    In this sense, what is childhood and adulthood?

    It is one eternal round.

    But that experience – of me raising my children and the humility that brings – and my children being raised – and the humility that takes – clearly has significance and importance to our eternal progression. This explains why Emma was given this promise that she would one day raise the children she lost. She missed that opportunity, but in God’s Plan, nothing is truly missed. It’s all one eternal round. It all comes back. This should be a great comfort to anyone who has lost any loved ones, to anyone who’s felt they missed any mortal opportunity – to raise children, get married, or have any mortal experience – this should be a great comfort to all.

    Another significant message to take from this vision given to Emma is the importance of the family unit. Just because Emma’s children died as infants didn’t mean they weren’t her children. They would always be her children. She would always be their mother. The family unit is important. The family unit is eternal.

    I’ve touched on age, mortality, childhood and adulthood, maturity, and time – 5 of the 6 seemingly random topics. What of our bodies?

    Our bodies have eternal significance and their growth has eternal significance. We can not be like our Father in Heaven until we are resurrected and have bodies like His. I’ve been pondering on this a lot lately. The elements are eternal. Element can not be destroyed. When God created Adam and Eve’s bodies from the dust of the earth, He was taking eternal element and making a tabernacle for them. Our eternal spirits are housed in eternal element. There is something extraordinary and significant about our bodies. We cannot be properly resurrected beings, we cannot be like our Heavenly Father, without attaining our bodies.

    After our resurrection we will attain our bodies for the rest of eternity and therefore be more like our Father.

    Finally, the biggest thing to take away from Emma’s experience is how ignorant we are of the complete workings of God. We can rest assured that a perfect and all-loving Father in heaven will make ALL things right. Every last item that is a concern to us – death, raising children, marriage, relationships, family – all of it will be understood and made right in a perfect way.

    I have no doubt that my Heavenly Father, and your Heavenly Father, loves all of us in such a deep and incomprehensible way. I have faith in His love and His character. I have faith in His Plan. I know all our concerns are but the concerns of a child wanting a chocolate bar at a store. The child can’t see the grand scheme and can’t see how the world can be right while leaving the store without a chocolate bar. One day our eyes will be opened and we will see that the chocolate bar wasn’t as important as we thought, for our Father had created a plan to give us all the chocolate our heart could desire.

    If we follow Him and trust Him, it all will be made right.

  • Raising our Children

    Raising our Children

    I don’t understand the timing of eternity. I don’t understand how it’s going to work out.

    There is a peculiar promise made to Emma Smith in church history. That promise was that she would be able to raise to adulthood the children she had lost.

    I always found this strange.

    Why would she want to raise her children after life on earth? Their souls will be grown, and they will no longer need rearing to adulthood like they would have needed on earth. Are there children in heaven?

    Then the other day I was spending time with Ivy and Sage. Wren was also in the room. Ivy said something very smart. Sage said something very cute. Wren spit up. I realized how precious each of these phases was.

    While I’d always considered this promise strange, in that moment it made sense. I wouldn’t want to miss out on any of these moments or phases with my daughters. Each age, each moment, each day is so unique with each of them.

    Right now Ivy is becoming so smart and so helpful.

    Right now Sage is so trusting and so happy.

    Right now Wren is so innocent and so cute.

    I could add 100 more individual adjectives for them at these specific moments. They are each so unique.

    A common theme of my prayers is asking God the question: What did I do to earn these precious gifts?

    I don’t know how I could possibly be worthy of these unique and special souls that have been sent down to me. I look at Ivy, Sage, and Wren and just marvel at who they are.

    I marvel that the world goes day-to-day without answers to these questions:

    Why am I here?

    Where did I come from?

    Where am I going?

    What happens to those we love when they move on?

    This life is so hard but without the inkling of an understanding of what comes next, it seems so hopeless.

    The Plan of Salvation is a Plan of Happiness. Because God loves us He gave us families. Because He loves us He gave us the chance to come to this planet to learn.

    I marvel at this plan and that I get to be a part of it.

    I don’t know exactly how things work after this life. I don’t know how eternity works. But I do know that God is perfect and He loves us perfectly. I know that nothing will be lost – not one moment, not one gift.

    I know that God gave me these daughters not for this life but for eternity. I know we’ll be together forever.